


Let Them Eat Cake

by NervousAsexual



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Nuka-World DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 11:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18827308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Gage is a little too direct in trying to get Colter to focus on the problems in Nuka-World, and Colter beats the everloving shit out of him.





	Let Them Eat Cake

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this tumblr post](https://headcanonsforcompanions.tumblr.com/post/184736558033/colter-beat-the-everloving-shit-out-of-gage-before).

One time when he was a kid, running with some Commonwealth gang that didn't have a proper name, Porter Gage found a musty old storm cellar filled with videos. That was a first--most video tapes had turned to dust during the two centuries since the bombs fell. But these looked to be in pretty good shape. He dug up an old TV with a tape player still attached and fiddled with it until he got it working, and then he popped in the first tape he could get his grubby little hands on.

The first thing onscreen was a whole lot of static, so he gave it a good thump and out of the snow came a picture of the prettiest girl he'd ever seen with the ugliest hairdo he'd ever seen. You could tell she was pre-war because she was so white she couldn't have ever seen a rad, and she had a lot of white stuff that turned out to be her hair in a mess of curliques stacked up on top of her head. There were a lot of feathers stuck in her hair, and he had to wonder how bad a headache that must have given her before he remembered that videos came with sound. He cranked up the volume just in time to hear, over the dull roar of strained electronics, someone say, "The peasants are starving, my lady. They have no bread." And then the woman in the stupid hairdo looked surprised and said, "No bread? Then let them eat cake!"

At that point the tape player stopped roaring and burst into flames, taking the rest of the cellar with it, so he'd never gotten to find out if the lady was joking or if she was really that dumb.

Colter, though? Colter really was that dumb.

"The raiders don't have to lift a finger," Gage told him. "What if some traders get split off to work on it?"

"Fuck's sake, Gage." The Whac-a-Commie machine Colter had been playing on had long since stopped playing that god-awful tinny music, but the overboss was still beating it with the padded mallet. "We don't need a fucking farm. You get hungry, go buy a burger from Lauren. And if you don't got the caps for that, hell, kick a vending machine or something. We got more cotton candy bites than a mutie has fleas."

Gage was well aware of the abundance of cotton candy. He ate it on the regular, because while the Pack was good at killing deathclaws they sucked at remembering to drag some of the meat back to Nuka-Town. Every other week the settlement had a food crisis, and if it kept up Gage had a feeling the Disciples were going to turn cannibal. "I just think we need a more steady food source."

Colter scowled and gave the machine one last whack. Right on cue Fritsch scuttled up with a thick stack of arcade tickets. "What part of 'more cotton candy than a mutie has fleas' didn't you understand, asshole?"

Just thinking about it made Gage sick to his stomach. Those shitty little squares were the exact opposite of filling. Last time this happened he'd eaten box after box, trying to fill up that empty yawning pit in his belly, until he wound up stumbling around an empty back alley. He shook and he shivered and then he puked everything back up in an ugly burning mess. "That's not going to keep everybody nourished, Colter. We have to do something about this."

Colter had been counting out his new arcade tickets, but at that he looked up. His eyes were cold and hard and immediately Gage felt a chill. What had he said? What had happened? "'We?' _We_ have to do something?"

_Too direct_ , he realized, a little too late. "No, I didn't mean..."

"Oh yes you did mean." Colter foisted the tickets on Fritsch and folded his arms. The arcade was eerily quiet. There had been at least a half dozen other raiders milling around, and now they were so silent he thought they might have left but didn't dare look around to see. "Let's hear it, big man. Let's hear your great idea."

Something in Colter's temple twitched when he spoke. Gage felt a wave of nausea. What did that mean? He'd already explained the idea, that was what they were talking about.

"Come on." Colter stepped right up to him, so close Gage could smell the whiskey and mole rat steak on his breath. "You're the one so full of great ideas, gonna save us all. Come on," he called to the arcade at large. "Everybody come listen. We got our own little John-Caleb Bradburton here. He's gonna teach us all how it really is."

The hair on the back of his neck stood up on end. "I..."

"Come on, smart guy. Tell us all about how you're gonna fucking run this show. 'Cause you're the one in charge, right? I'm just the big dumb idiot you get to do your dirty work."

He didn't say anything. There wasn't a thing he could say that wouldn't dig the hole deeper.

"Piece of shit," Colter said, and swung the Commie Whacker mallet so fast Gage didn't have time to flinch.

The damn thing was so padded it didn't hurt, not really, but it struck him in the temple hard enough to knock his eye patch crooked. He froze up--he always fucking froze up. Put him up against any of the raiders and he'd kick their asses, but every fucking time Colter looked at him crossways he froze up like a gazelle. The mallet hit him again, right in the place beneath his chest that always knocked the breath out of him. His lungs felt as though they'd flipped inside out and suddenly he was down on his knees, gasping like a fish out of water. Colter gave the mallet a fling--it bounced out of view--and his broken jagged nails bit into the skin of Gage's forehead and he ripped the eyepatch off entirely.

"Oh, shit," somebody said, sounded like an Operator. Still gasping for air Gage mashed the heel of his hand into his missing eye. There was a fucking reason he didn't let everybody look at the empty socket all the goddamn time.

Colter planted the sole of his boot directly into Gage's chest, sent him sprawling out on his back, but he didn't say a word and it made the anxiety in Gage's head bust through the roof. It was worse when he didn't talk. It was always worse. "I'm sorry, boss," he coughed out.

No response. Not even a goddamn smirk. Colter bent down and grabbed him by the throat, squeezing so tight he could feel that fragile little bone in his neck strained at the pressure, dragged him up to his knees. The arcade lights whirled around his head. God, he was going to be sick...

Then he was lurching forward, Colter's hand suddenly on the back of his head and he saw the colors in front of him and then his head struck the edge of machine. He saw stars, stars, and blood, maybe, and Colter gave him a sling that sent him crashing into something metal--had to be the Atomic Rollers machine--that stuck hard in between his ribs. He started to stand, limbs shaky and weak. No. Bad plan. He let himself go limp just as the toe of Colter's boot connected with his cheek, and the one fucking tooth he had left in that side of his mouth gashed open the inside of his cheek and he tasted slime--no, not slime, blood.

The arcade was dead silent except for heavy breathing from Colter. He kicked again, connected with the back of Gage's forearm so that pain shot through like it was being split in two, kicked a third time, missed entirely, and struck the roller machine. It jolted to life, playing some godawful tinny song that made Gage's head ring, and lit up.

"Don't you fucking dare," Colter screamed-- _don't what? don't move? he hadn't moved, he hadn't caused Colter to miss--_ and stomped down so hard on Gage's spine that his vision went white for a moment.

God, his back was fucking broken, they'd throw him to the fucking Pack animals, have him ripped apart for shits and giggles...

Colter dragged him onto his back and the room was spinning around him, he still couldn't breathe he hadn't been able to breathe since this started, and the blood in his mouth was draining down his fucking throat. The boot came down right in his stomach again and again and again and Colter was gonna fucking kill him, he couldn't even fucking scream because he was out of air.

Hand around his throat again, dragged him up, pinned him to the wall, and Colter whipped out a pocketknife, flicked it open, god, no, what was he going to fucking do with--it angled up, straight for his eye and he was so tangled with fear he couldn't move, he wasn't ready for the darkness without his good eye, he wanted to scream but had no air, wanted to fight but had no strength...

The tip of the knife pierced the skin of his lower lid and stopped.

Tears. Tears ran from both eyes and down his face.

He looked at Colter, and Colter looked at him. What was he waiting for?

But Colter looked away, let the hand holding the knife fall. It left just the thinnest, shallowest slice down his face but Gage could barely feel it.

"Fucking pussy," Colter muttered, and let him go. Gage crashed to the floor.

For another moment the only noise was the roller machine. Without a conscious thought Gage pressed his arm to his good eye and struggled for air.

"Clean up this goddamn mess," Colter said at last, and his footsteps went away.

More footsteps cleared out after him. The raiders. Raiders wouldn't farm and they wouldn't clean up. Colter had no fucking clue.

Fritsch's hands cleaned him up some, wiped some of the blood from his mouth. Brought him back his eye patch. He'd never been more relieved to strap that uncomfortable fucking thing to his face. Fritsch helped him sit up against the machine and gave it a single precise thump that (thank god) made the music stop.

Neither of them said a word. Neither of them had to.

Porter Gage came to a decision there. One way or another Colter was gonna fucking die. If the raiders didn't kill him, his own fucking incompetence would.

What Nuka-World needed, even more than a reliable food source, was a new overboss. Whoever, wherever that new boss was, Gage was gonna find them, and he was gonna personally ensure they fucking obliterated Colter.

After that, who knew. Maybe they'd get the food situation straightened out. Maybe they'd finally get the power back on. What the fuck ever. Gage was gonna leave Colter's rotting corpse for the bloatflies to eat, and that was all that mattered.


End file.
